Explorations in Sound

SOUL: The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.

Prior to seeing the Scratch documentary and visiting Dublab.com, I had no idea that a large portion of what I consume musically is the result of bricolage. Or at least, I never really thought about it as a reconstruction of the past to create new. What these two music projects brought to mind is how unconscious people are of what they are hearing when they play music. On a surface level, there is no history. There is the desired world we create by infusing our lives with the sounds of our pleasure. Yet, what we build by infusing our lives with music is precisely what musicians aimed to do through the exploration of sound. It's as if the music itself was imbued with this goal via the artist's hands when it was being created. For this reason, the music, regardless of whether it is reconstructed or not, can never be separated from it's original maker. It carries messages and meanings to people across distant lands. It spreads ideas, thoughts, calm and joy. It can bring us to tears. It can motivate. It does all these things through sound. Thus, we would be in denial to shrug music off as surface entertainment. Music is endowed with a soul. It carries the spirit of the artist. With the introduction of bricolage, it carries not only one soul, but the souls and histories of many. At the same time it spreads, it also connects us.

In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen proposes that music is a sort of auditory grooming that advanced from the actual grooming we now see today in primates. He says its function is to share, through co-production, a complex set of signals that say, "you and I are the same types of people." He even goes as far as to say that language formed as a form of vocal grooming because it enabled a single being to connect and show appreciation for others simultaneously. Taken in consideration with the idea of bricolage as audio piracy, it seems absurd to even suggest that the artists of plunderphonics are engaging in acts of theft. If music is a spirit and its sole means is to connect, it doesn't belong to any of us. It is free. If anything, the selling of music is degrading its true value.



And for those of you wondering how the soul of music sounds when it comes to compositions check out Part 1 of "10 Years of Future Roots Radio" at Dublab.com. I recommend beginning the track at 01:14:00 to hear Bradford Cox of Atlas Sound. The way the notes drift in and out is a great example of the music's attempt to connect. Of course when this sound is recorded and made immaterial, it is the embodiment of the soul of its composer.